second,” I say.
Brit has added a picture of her, a friend and two senior guys goofing around. The four of them are draped all over each other and leaning into the camera and acting high or drunk. Which is possible. Even goofy she looks pretty amazing. Brit and I have been in the same school since middle school. I think we took geometry together. But I never really noticed her until this year.
It started near the beginning of the year. Our history teacher, Mr. Hobson, has this way of talking to the girls in the class. At least certain girls. I’m not sure if it would be more or less creepy if he was younger or more handsome, but he’s an old guy, at least as old as my dad, and when you get up close to him you can see craters in his cheeks and his breath is pretty awful. Anyway, he’ll call on girls in class and say stuff like, “Brit. I bet you know who the Continental Congress assigned to write the first draft of the Constitution. Because I’m sure you weren’t out carousing like half the girls in this school, dolled up like streetwalkers, doing God-knows-what on a school night.”
And Brit, instead of blushing or putting on that “OMG” face and looking at her friends in disbelief, she just stared him in the eye and said, “Mr. Hobson, are you asking me about James Madison or are you asking me about my social life?”
Everyone started laughing and now it was Mr. Hobson who was blushing. Brit and I have American History and English together and if it weren’t for her presence, I’d probably have missed so many classes I’d be flunked out by now.
Actually she knows who I am, I’m pretty sure. She said hello to me once at the mall food court. She was with a bunch of girls and I was with my mother. So I was walking as fast as I could and looking at the ground. The thing is, you have to be someone, do something, before the girls pay attention. So my brother, for years he spends three hours a day shooting hoops in the front drive. It looked like some kind of boredom torture to me, standing in the corner with a rack of balls, shooting the same damn shot over and over. Of course, Garrett would probably say the same about playing twelve hours of Starfare a day. But then he got to be a famous star on the basketball team with every girl in school worshipping him.
I pick up the morning paper and there it is on page one.
Local boy wins world Starfare tournament, $30K
Brit is waiting for me outside of homeroom. Everyone is high-fiving me and patting me on the back. She says, “Seth! That was so cool. I hear you’re going to buy a Porsche.”
I don’t care if everyone is watching or not. I step in close and wrap my arms around her and pull her towards me. Then our lips are meeting and she’s kissing me back and sighing.
“Seth! What the hell?”
DT is always a little wired. It’s not like they’re going to start the match without us. So I tell him that I’ve got to check my broadband speed, even though it’s fine.
I wish I knew exactly what it is about Brit. It’s not like she’s the school goddess or something. She’s got normal, brown hair. Cut shoulder length like most of the girls. Wears the same sorts of nice clothes. But she’s different too. She has this sort of confidence. When she’s standing up in front of the class, like she did last week, giving a report on some old poem…it’s like those moments in a movie where the music wells up and everyone’s leaning forward. She shakes her hair and then brushes a strand back behind her right ear. And my pulse doubles and I can feel something electric glowing inside of me and spreading through my body….
Just before I tell DTerra I’m ready, my mom starts pounding on my door so hard my Starfare Horizons poster starts shaking like a fan is blowing. Luckily I have a lock, but it’s one of those you can pop with a little metal stick, if you work it around a couple minutes. At least it gives me plenty of warning.
“Not now!” I shout.
“Your father is on the phone and you’d better talk to him. And I mean now! Anyway you know I HATE talking through a locked door. Why do you have to lock it anyway?”
Well, that’s pretty obvious, I’m thinking.
“Seth!”
“I’ll call him back on my cell,” I shout. The game is about to start and DTerra is telling me what he’s going to be doing and it takes total concentration. I tell my parents it’s like when my older brother was starting on the basketball team, dribbling down the floor. Would they stand up and scream, “Garrett! You forgot to pick up your dirty socks like you promised” or “Garrett! Have you finished your English essay?” But no matter how many times I explain it, they just don’t get it.
Mom mutters something but I can tell she’s giving up, so now I just have to get my head back into the game. That’s why I dream about getting away from all this school and family crap and just focusing on what I need to do to make it to the top. And making it to the top means making it to Korea. E-sports are huge in Korea, with twenty-four-hour TV broadcasts and teams that train like madmen. The top guys are pulling in six-figure money. I don’t talk about it, because people would think I’m crazy, but someday, if I can cut through all the crap that’s holding me back, that’s going to be me.
Then my room and my mom and school disappear and the game starts. My hand is dancing over the keyboard, my mouse is clicking like a Geiger counter. Every extraneous thought is gone and I’m deep inside the glowing screen, mining resources and figuring out how to counter the German team’s troop development. As I’m clicking I’m shouting out orders to DT and marching across a landscape of spiked mountains and fire-glowing valleys. A skirmish starts and the screen lights up with explosions as we trade cannon blasts. I yell for DT to finish them off while I check the spybots I’ve sent to the western quadrant. My whole being is now tunneled into the world on the screen, every neuron in my brain is firing for one purpose. Another hard-fought, glorious victory.
2.
Thank God, back at Dad’s. He’s on the road; I’m on the Starfare warpath. For once pumping in decent hours, really getting into the groove. I’m taking four AP courses, two are a breeze, two are a pain, but I’ve got sixth period study hall, which means early release. I scamper across the parking lot, between all the hand-me-down Acuras and BMWs, cut through two rows of McMansions on a bike path and I’m plugging in at Dad’s condo. For dinner I take a fifteen-minute break, scoot around the corner and I’m at KenTacoHut—my favorite restaurant. American, Mexican and Italian under one roof.
For months all I’ve been thinking about is this online tournament that gives away seats at Nationals. At my age, the top Korean kids are already challenging the pros. If I can’t even make U.S. Nationals then I’m worse than awful. Rather than dream about becoming a pro-gamer, I might as well plan on winning American Idol. And most dogs sing better than me.
As the day approaches, my classes get longer and longer while all I can think about is getting back to the computer. It seems like a year before we get to the Friday of the weekend tournament. The teacher is blabbering on, something about World War I. As soon as he says the word “battle” Starfare games start echoing in my head like pop music worms. I close my eyes and I can see the flashes of a Starfare firefight, and feel a glimmer of the excitement of battle. When the last bell sounds I’m out of there like there’s a fire and jog all the way home. The computer takes what feels like an hour to boot up and the game queue is endless. I run to the fridge, grab a Pepper, and then, at last, my game is up and I’m back where I belong.
Saturday, 10 a.m. and I’m finally sitting down in my bedroom at Dad’s, waiting for the first round draws to be announced. I’m so wired I can’t sit still. I get
